A bit about myself

I am a rice farmer in Southern NSW, Australia. 20ks west of Moulamiein.

We are a family farming operation, and have been on the same land since 1900. We started growing Rice in the early 1960s and have grown a crop every year since, until the 2006 drought. The next four years of water shortages meant we grew very little rice, if any. The Seasons have since recovered, but the Rice industry is now not the same. Much water has been sold out of the irrigation districts, and the economics of growing Rice for some have changed forever. We must continue to find ways of minimising costs and inputs, particulary water, as it is now our most precious and competerd for resource.

 I farm with my wife Elizabeth, my sister and brother inlaw, Helen and Sean Collins. We are primarily an Irrigated cropping business, Rice being our main focus, we crop annualy up to 700 ha, we also have 600 ha under center pivot, dryland crop 4000 ha of cereals, operate 40 ha of stonefruit, and run 1600 Merino sheep for Wool and Fat lambs.

We also have 5 full time, very capable staff.

In the early 1990s, we started following Minimum Tillage  in our dryland cropping. We now operate with a full RTK GPS system, use variable rate sowing, modified tynes for minimum soil disturbance, EM 38 soil surveys, Soil sample yealy, and measure our soil moisture profile before cropping. we have had significant yield increases, and reduced our crop inputs and costs by adopting these methods.

In 2006, when the drought hit, we were already looking at how to use the same technolgy in our irrigated cropping systems.

The Rice industry traditionally, sows pre soaked rice into flooded paddi to establish the crop. The 1st 6 weeks of establishment aere critical, with many of natures elements to overcome. Our soils are very soadic, and highly dispersable. water is easily sent cloudy with wind action, seed is moved and buried, cold weather  reduces seedling vigour, pests attack, and the ducks can wipe out ares overnight.  All that said, good growers with attention to detail, will alwys get the crop through.

By introducing Min Till to rice, we now sow dry seed into a dry paddi, then flush to germinate, followed by pre emergent herbicides. We may flush 4 times to establish the crop. This sytem has proven easy to, and to use less water, about 1 meg per ha, less chemicals. We can use our existing machinary to grow the crop.

About this time I was encouraged by some local Nuffield Scholars to apply for a Nuffield Scholarship. 

I was accepted and sponsered by the Rice Industry, my topic being, Technology Changes in Rice Systems. The opertunity to travel the world looking at Rice systems, Technology, talk with Researchers and Farmers will be a great opertunity.

Accepting this scholarship, will undoubtedly put pressure on my Family and  Staff, but I know they are very capable, and are just as passionate about farming Rice as I am, so I must thank them for thier support. 

Immediately accepting our Scholarships, we attended a conference in Guelph Canada with other 2013 Scholars, some 60 of us from around the world. After the competion of the conference, we travelled USA, south Graet Lakes for two weeks visiting with researchers, farmers and businesses. 

In Late april 2103, we travelled the world in a group of 8, again visiting researchers, businesses, and politicians, giving us an invaluable insight into world politics, relations and trade. We visted the Philippines,  USA, China, Holland, France, and Ireland. From there I visited England, France and Italy over 12 weeks.

Now 7 months later, I leave at our busiest time, with our cropping season approaching, corn harvest half complete, and our Rice harvest about to start, to travel back to the USA, Uruguay, England, Italy and the Phillipines, in an effort to solve some of our cropping sytems problems.

Looking forward to the challenges of travel, and especialy seeing how other farmers deal with the challenges of everyday farming.

CHINA

What a country, huge contrasts, wealth, lower class, poverty,  but big on ambition and the future

China has an official pop of 1.3 billion people, some of their major cities have the population of australia living in them. But there are estimates that number could be as many as 1.5 billion people living in China.

China is experiencing dramatic change to its social classes, infrastructure and traditions. The Chinese Govt has a national spend of 26% of GDP on the countries infrastructure over the last 5 years. Their national roadways rival any countries, Building is happening at a frightening pace, with every towns skyline littered with cranes on the top of skyscrapers, new cities being developed in remote areas. There is a push to attract people from the country into cities, encouraging amalgamation of farmland into bigger more productive lots. Investment is encouraged from outsiders, to develop farmland to be more productive. The alarming thing we saw, was the lack of planning, quality control and finish, to these programs.

We were met by Ashely Fraser, Nuffield 2012, who led us for the first few days of our tour,  Ashley has been exporting machinary from china for 5 years and gave us an insight on Chinese tradition, custom, and mentality. Ashely introduced us to  Mr Zhi Young Zhao, owner of the Kaifeng Maosheng machinery co, who make and export grain cleaning, flour milling equip world wide. We were their guests for three nights, thier hospitality was amazing, and I am sure any of Nuffield would be welcome any time.But their   plans for the future are huge, Along with the Chinese Govt, they have invested in a 40 ha development that will house workers, offices, and manufacturing building and equipment. Work has started, and they will be complete in five years.

We visited Li Shaobing, Inner Mongolia Reproductive Biotechnology, in charge of a facility importing sheep embryo from australia, mainly dorper types, and infusing them into the local mongol sheep, a big framed animal, with high fertility, but poor meat score. The program has worked well, with 10 centres rolled out around the grazing ares of north china. The country cannot support grazing, 200 mil rainfall per annum, so animals are housed. The program funded by the govt, gives animals to local framers, who have to use these animals for breeding, not eat them. Program is working so well that farmers are now approaching them to buy the latest progeny. Gains in meat production have been huge and well accepted.

We later met with Peter Yeung, a Hong Kong born investor, gone farming in China on the yellow river. Along with the Govt, he has developed 400 ha, to grow Chinese Veggies, mainly brassicas. He has developed the farm using western technology, sprinkler systems, raised beds, modern row crop machinery, refrigeration etc. all his product is exported to Hong Kong. He has big plans, but is restrained by his labour force, as they are slow to embrace the new ways, and the idea of quality control is hard to implement.

We visited chinas largest dairy operation, Diary United milking at 72 diaries across the country, 1 million cows, producing UHT products and yogurts. Their is very little fresh milk in china, per capita use at about 12 litres per, year but expected to double in the next 5 years

We met with James Su.  assistant general manager of diary United on our last night, He conveyed that China was developing quickly, trying to met its domestic requirements, with expenditure on infrastructure and industry, but was facing problems with education, feeding the population, and changing tradition. He is very positive about the future, suggesting that china will never be able to meet its domestic requirements on its own. China is thirsty for knowledge, looking for joint venture capital, and expertise, but still looking to protect its internal production, making it very hard to export product into china.

It is my impression that the next generation of Chinese will want to join western society, opening many doors into china, but for the moment that door is firmly closed. Young people do not want to work in agriculture at present, drifting to the cities, but are being well educated, while the older generation remains in the country, unable to change, or invest in the future.  sounds just like agriculture in Australia.

China will be an opportunity in the future for import/exports from around the world, Their infrastructure is being built to  carry them forward to the next generation, but is it sustainable. Their leaders have a great  vision, the spend on infrastructure is huge, but the will to change and embrase the western world is still a generation away. They have the ontrepenours, cheep labour, but no middle management, and no education programs.

03 06 2013, IIRI Phillipines

We are at IRRI, International Rice Research Institute, talking to staff member James Quilty.

IRRI Rice Research has expertise and facilities that would be the envy of any research institution, and is firmly focused on feeding the world. 

They are working on the worlds largest collection of rice varieties, some 117,000, and still counting, all in cold storage for the future. They are working hard at mapping Rice genotypes of many of these varieties, this will allow fast-tracking the breeding of new varieties , cutting the time taken to produce a new variety by at least half, but also to select for traits as required. New varieties could be ready to go commercially in as little as 5 years.

They are also focused on education, forming the science partnership, GRISP, offering 200 places annually to students from all over the world, the opportunity to study, and work with their scientists. IRRI also work extensively with farmers, extension people in the  Philippines, as well as people from other countries in an effort to increase world Rice production in a sustainable way. 

Thier breeders are interested in creating a C4 type Rice, basically a rice variety with the vigour of a corn plant. They are looking at the possability of developing a variety with higher Iron levels, and higher vitimain levelsto assist in providing an easy way to increase the health of all those who consume rice.  All geared to increasing the production of Rice to feed the growing world population.

Some interesting facts from the day

World demand for Rice is expected to increase 2% per year

3 Billion people rely on Rice

World area planted to Rice has stabilised

Yields are not increasing quickly enough to meet forecast world demand

We also visited their great Rice Museum which maps out the history of Rice and has a large display of farming practices, tools, from the  Philippines.

 

 

The day started with a presentation by Duncan Mackintosh, Development directer, and Liegh Vial, Head of the experiment station and former Nuffield Scholar, 2008. we then wre taken on a tour by james McQuilty, research scientist of the station. 1st stop was a look at the oldest trails, countinous rice for 52 years, with out any nitrogen fert for that time. . Not thier normal practise, but an intersting comparison to other trials. From there we looked at trials designed to break the continous rice cropping cycle, with alternate crops, corn, mung beans etc, in an effort to prove to local farmers that they could be more productive and profitable.

We then saw thier world wide collection of wild rice, which showed graphcally, the amount of variation of rice types from around the world.

After lunch we visited the International Rice Genebank, were we where shown how they prepare grain for long term storage, at low temp, some at degrees, foe 100 years, to safeguard the survival of varieties.

from there we went to the labs, and discussed how, using Molecular markers, they map the geneotypes of a variety, and how that they can identify traits, that they can transfere to a new variety, to enhance the new variety, speeding up the selection pocess of new varieties.

we finished the day looking at thier rice Museum, with an interesting display of old farmimg practices/tools from the phillipines and china, Interesting Rice products, and a fantatsic display of birds that frequent rice paddies from around the world.